Translations Often Challenged

Religion

April 6, 2002|By Mark I. Pinsky, Sentinel Staff Writer

Controversy like the one surrounding release of Today's New International Version (TNIV) is not new to Bible translations.

In the 4th century, St. Jerome created a Latin version, the Vulgate, for the Roman Church, which remains the source for English-language Bibles used in most Catholic churches, such as the New Jerusalem Bible.

Thanks to the invention of the printing press, Martin Luther's translation of the Bible into German more than 1,000 years later helped spark the Protestant Reformation.

English religious reformers John Wycliffe and William Tyndale did early translations, sometimes to their peril. Tyndale was burned at the stake by Catholic authorities in Europe in 1536.

Later, in 1611, King James I commissioned and authorized a translation of the New Testament and -- from the Hebrew and Aramaic -- the Five Books of Moses, the Prophets, Proverbs and Psalms that make up the Old Testament.

One reason he wanted a new translation was his belief that the Geneva Bible, which was translated in 1560 by English Protestant exiles in Switzerland, included commentary that James found seditious.

Despite the new model, the Pilgrims chose the older Geneva over the King James to bring with them on the Mayflower when they came to America in 1620.

This snub did nothing to hurt subsequent North American sales of the King James Version, with its elegant language and moving imagery. In the United States, it was joined by more than 2,000 other English translations of the Bible between 1777 and 1957, including versions by Thomas Jefferson and feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton.